[Washington, DC's reliance on goverment is] a relatively less dangerous addiction than others. Diversification can never be sold until it’s too late. Complexity breeds resilience. It’s true in natural systems, and it’s true in economics.

So many places were utterly devastated by massive real estate bubbles that did huge damage to the country… Tulsa really hasn't had that extreme overhang to work through and now is enjoying some solid recovery via manufacturing and oil and gas.... There are some bright spots, especially if you look at the employment changes by industry—for the last four quarters, you can see that manufacturing has made a real contribution in this recovery. You [metro Tulsa] have a larger-than-average employment concentration in manufacturing ... than the national average.

Amid a patchy and still anemic recovery nationwide, the Mountain West’s metropolitan areas performed somewhat better than the rest of the country in the first quarter of 2012. While there is definite variation, the region continued its steady recovery in the early months of the year.

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